


Us

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Despite what the prompt may look like it has a happy ending, F/F, I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 13:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15774918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: If you're still doing prompts, could we have one of them running away from their wedding for any reason and then talking it out afterwards?Asked by anon via tumblr





	Us

Her hands shook as she looked to the scribbled paper, back hurting as she tried to sit up straighter on the floor, back resting on the side of the bed. The words on the paper were blurry to her eyes but it didn’t matter as she knew them by heart.

Lips trembling with soft sobs, she muttered the first few words, the black ink forming squiggly lines that mocked her as the silent room filled with the sound of her voice, unnaturally loud to her ears despite her soft tone.

_“I think I fell in love with you little by little. In a way that I didn’t realize at first; a warm feeling that….”_

Stopping, words getting trapped between her tongue and teeth, Emma clutched the piece of paper and sighed, shoulders sagging and trembling as she tried to keep herself going. It was no use, however, as the same wave of shame that had been pulsing through her veins ever since close to an hour ago asphyxiated them.

Lies, she thought, looking beyond the paper, beyond the fabric pooled around her ankles and feet. Lies since she couldn’t go through them, through the feelings she had wanted to express a month ago, when she had sat with Henry, nervous, expectant, trembling, and had tried to come up with something that would be at least a fraction of what she knew Regina’s vows would be.

Lies since there she was, hiding in a room that she didn’t feel like hers anymore as she had run from the wedding, away from a smiling Regina so full of trust and love she felt nauseous even now. Lies because, at the end, she was a coward.

Savior. She struggled to keep herself at bay as she thought again on the title she still got to hear from time to time from the citizens of Storybrooke, the ones who knew who she was, the ones that hadn’t appeared after the merge. Hero.

Some hero she was, she thought putting the paper away, remembering that very same morning in where both Regina and herself had looked at each other and had kissed before going to finish the last details on the celebration; nerves eating their stomachs and a promise to get a time for themselves after the whole wedding was over hanging from their lips.

Deranged perhaps, stupid definetely, unworthy probably..

She had tried to walk down the aisle, created by fairies and sorceress, under the eyes of hundreds. She had tried to do it but, ultimately, she had run while letting her magic speed up her steps, a cloud of dirty-white hued magic forming vague footsteps on the ground below.

Divorced.

That was a third name she had heard ever since Snow had started to tell everyone how, in fact, a wedding was going to take place. Divorced and confused.

She hadn’t written vows, not really, for her previous wedding. The ceremony itself feeling a tie strong enough between him and the woman she had morphed into in order to create what everyone told her she needed to create; to accept. She hadn’t had a thing to say to be honest, words feeling difficult and heavy as she tried to navigate through them.

However, the words on this one were powerful, complicated, intricate and, as such, as she had been looking at herself on an unenchanted mirror, she had felt a fear that had always been with her, a fear that had always been her companion.

The fear of, again, not being enough. Enough for the ones who had come to the wedding, the ones who saw her as an anomaly, as the product of true love, as a mere story Storybrooke had once had. As a part of a prophecy written without names. Enough for her family, the one she had changed the day she had taken off the ring that felt more of a heavy stone than an everlasting comfort. Enough for the woman who kissed like fire and battled with the same passion. The woman she had been in love with for so long it was almost risible how much. The woman who had trusted her again and again for her to give her her back: blind, stupid and afraid.

She couldn’t be the woman they wanted her to be. She was no Hero, no Savior, no Emma. She was a coward, a divorced woman who had almost destroyed herself to the point in where her very own shadow felt shaky under the pale afternoon sunrays that filtered through the closed windows of the room.

She had bolted; wanting to run far away, cry and explode with every heartbeat, magic bristling and crackling inside of her.

Covering her eyes with the palms of her hands, she almost didn’t hear the soft knocks on the parted door of the room but, eventually, she felt the telling gentle waves of a magic she wouldn’t mistake for anyone else’s.

“It’s open.” She mumbled, throat raw and nose blocked.

“That doesn’t mean I can enter.”

Regina’s tone was gentle, and its softness made Emma sob as she turned, looking just from above the mattress, eyes red as she looked into the brunette’s still wedding-dress-clothed form.

Eyes red herself, Regina seemed tired and sad and yet not angry.

“I’m a horrible person.”

The sentence came out in a jumbled way, vowels missing and consonants barely making through. Regina, however, seemed to understand her as she sighed and entered into the room, wave after wave of gentle purple mist following her for a second before dissipating.

Sitting next to her, Regina hold one finger up as Emma opened her mouth, ready to ask her to stop ruining her dress; the one that made her look even more gorgeous than usual, the one that was, as just the wedding was, fit for a Queen.

“Don’t.” The brunette’s voice had enough brashness to make Emma nod meekly, not really knowing what to say.

At the silence that ensued, Regina sighed and picked up the paper of the vows, hand trembling as she glanced at them. Closing her eyes, she let magic return in the form of sparks around her, tinting the air.

“I was mad.” She admitted, eyes still closed. “I didn’t… I didn’t know what to do. Henry was the one who told me to talk to you.”

Despite everything, Emma laughed softly, a dry chuckle that made her ribs expand uncomfortably on the snug fabric that covered her. It didn’t matter how old that kid was; he never lost a chance to meddle.

Perhaps, she thought, putting her forehead against her hands, fingers pressed into her flesh, she owned him something. To both him and Regina.

Voice wobbly, she spoke, not once looking at Regina, not knowing if she would be able to answer if she did.

“I felt that, everything was going too fast, that everyone else was going too fast. Looking at us, at you, at me; trying to write us in a narrative, in a book, trying to put is in the last page of a story; a Happy ending and nothing else beyond that. I felt that we were rushing into it, with titles and dances and… I felt paralyzed. I want to be worthy to you, Regina, to our family. But I didn’t feel worthy, just a fraud.”

Silence filled the room, its weight growing until Emma couldn’t breathe.

“I love you. I always will, Regina. We have been through far too much for me to deny that. But I don’t know if I can do this; be this. I just want us to be us.”

The last sentence floated slowly upwards, to a point where Emma couldn’t sense it anymore as she felt more and more like a child asking to keep playing on a game they shouldn’t be playing; about to get discovered, about to get punished.

Instead, all she heard was a sigh as she felt strong hands around hers, pulling them away.

“Idiot.”

Regina’s eyes shone as Emma glanced up, lips parted and throat seizing.

Kneeling now in front of her, Regina glanced at their hands and spoke, voice shaky.

“I want an ‘us’ too. No matter if we have a ring or not that says so. You should know that.”

Sobbing, Emma nodded blindly as Regina hugged her, tighter enough that she was able to feel the steady beat of her power molding to hers, patiently waiting; strong and raw.

“I’m sorry.” She muttered, faintly. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” She heard, a kiss dropped on the crown of her head. “I know Emma.”


End file.
